


Penny For Your Thoughts (A Dollar For Your Insight)

by RoseByAnyOtherName17



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aftermath, Angst, Bathing, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Fluff, Love, Post-Battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-18 14:06:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18701122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseByAnyOtherName17/pseuds/RoseByAnyOtherName17
Summary: He hadn't expected to live, so now that he had, he wanted to know why.





	Penny For Your Thoughts (A Dollar For Your Insight)

**Author's Note:**

> Another aftermath fic because I they keep getting away from the image I had in my head and taking on a life of their own, but it flowed so well that I finished it anyways
> 
> For those reading my series, the next installment is coming! I haven't forgotten it :) enjoy this for now!

The thing was, he hadn’t thought he would live.

 

Hells, he hadn’t even been _hoping_ to live. He’d known he would be on the front lines, alongside Tormund and the Hound and Beric. The dead would come screaming for them first, and he would die before they got the chance to swarm the walls of Winterfell.

 

But somehow, he stayed standing. Somehow, he retreated to the top of the battlements in time to bash in some more skulls. And when the dead began to climb over, he still fought, covered in blood and back-to-back with Tormund. He’d even glimpsed her once, moving with foreign grace amidst the death around her. In the next second, he’d lost sight of her, and hadn’t allowed himself to look again. Lives depended on every swing of his hammer.

 

He expected to die, especially when the piles of dead bodies surrounding them rose again within Winterfell. When that dead, white dragon swooped down into the courtyard and screaming blue fire, he thought he would drown in the icy heat. And he still kept going, exhausted, muscles shrieking for mercy, blood running from his nose. He and Tormund had lost the Hound and Beric in the chaos, could only stand on their renewed pile of bodies and defend their stance, watching each other’s backs and praying that the bloody dragon wouldn’t turn its gaping maw on them.

 

This was surely it, he thought blearily, but it didn’t end.

 

And then it did.

 

The dead fell, every one of them, simply collapsing as if their strings had been cut. The big dragon fell in a heap, missing Jon Snow by mere inches. The man looked so shocked that for a helpless second, Gendry almost laughed. He swallowed it down, grabbing Tormund’s elbow while the man swung his head around wildly and almost stumbled from their perch.

 

The dead fell, and did not rise. But he remained standing, against all odds, against hope he hadn’t even had.

 

He’d fully expected to die that night, but dawn was peeking through the snowstorm that was finally lightening. He’d been prepared to die, and that’s probably why he hadn’t stopped her when she kissed him.

 

He wasn’t an idiot despite what she used to tell him, or a fool. He knew full well that, if he’d known he would live, he would have made the exact same choices. He still would kiss her back, he would let her push him onto his back, he would still wrap his arms around her and guide her down onto his cock and kiss her quiet when she squeezed around him, sobbing brokenly into his mouth. But he probably would have asked her first, held her still and made sure that this was something she wanted, that she wanted it with _him_. They would have talked about it, or at least he would have tried. He would have tried harder to pull that vulnerable flash out into the open, the one in her eyes just before she kissed him. He would have waited for her mask to break _before_ they were naked and he had her in his lap.

 

But he had expected to die, so he did none of that. And now he had to live with the consequences.

 

It was cowardly, he knew, and she would tell him so if he dared utter any of these thoughts to her out loud. Which he almost did, the moment she came out of the godswood, pushing her younger brother in front of her. She was filthy, blood dripping into one eye, but she held her head high and met everyone’s gaze steadily. He took several steps toward her, forgetting everything for a second. For a second, her eyes met his, and he saw his own relief reflected there. But Jon got to her first, sweeping her up into his arms, setting her down to kiss Bran’s forehead, holding both of them tightly, and Gendry could not bring himself to put himself between them.

 

He looked away, desperate to find something else to watch, and was caught off guard by Tormund’s uncharacteristic gentleness as he stumbled over to Brienne of Tarth and the Kingslayer. He lifted a hand to her face, turning her head to get a closer look at a gash on her cheek, and said some words that Gendry couldn’t hear. Brienne nodded in answer, eyes falling shut, and then she passed right out. The Kingslayer – _Jaime_ , his mind supplied – caught her before she could hit the ground, and then helped arrange her in Tormund’s arms. They, with her squire, walked into the ruined castle together.

 

He could feel her staring at him, but he ignored her, too afraid now to look back. He made his way to the crypts, found a pile of bodies in front of the doors, and began pulling them away one by one until the heavy doors were shoved open and Lady Stark burst out, wild-eyed. She saw him first, and he thought that maybe she recognized him, because she asked, “Arya? Jon?” He pointed wordlessly to the courtyard, and watched her go.

 

By some strange miracle, the cellars and storerooms had been spared, and once the great hall was cleared of bodies, it became a makeshift infirmary of sorts. The women who had escaped the carnage in the crypts set about caring for their men, and for men that were strangers. Gendry set to boiling rags for bandages over the large fireplace behind the great table at the head of the room, ignoring his own injuries for the time being. They were minor enough, compared to some; Samwell Tarly had broken his leg; Brienne suffered a large gash across her shin to the bone; Jon Snow was breathing shallowly and cradling his arm close to his chest. Lady Stark and the Dragon Queen, once she had entered the room with her dirty face tearstained, saw to him. The two women spoke quietly over his head, but all of the animosity Gendry had previously seen between them seemed to have evaporated for the time being.

 

He shouldn’t have been surprised when she sought him out first. Of course she would, she always did. “That looks pretty nasty,” she said offhandedly. He followed her gaze and was a little surprised to see blood oozing slowly from a deep cut on his arm. “It’ll need to be stitched up.”

 

Up close, the cut over her own eye was even uglier than he’d thought, and on her neck was the dark shadow of a handprint, black right against her throat where the Night King’s thumb must have rested. Because, of course, the word that she killed the Night King spread like wildfire the moment Bran Stark uttered the words. She was responsible for saving their lives. He wondered what she thought about that, after telling him less than a day before that she knew Death.

 

Now that she’d pointed it out, his arm was beginning to sting, and it only grew as he twisted it to get a better look. She rolled her eyes. “Stop moving,” she ordered, sitting next to him. “Be still.” She whipped out a needle (a real needle) and thread out of nowhere, it seemed, and made him hold them while she carefully cleaned the wound. He gritted his teeth when she began to sew it shut, staring resolutely at the fire in front of him and listening to the rumble of voices in the hall. Several feet away, he heard Tormund’s booming laugh, and turned his head to see Brienne smile reluctantly and Jaime looking highly amused.

 

“Do you think that the Kingslayer knows he’s in love with her?” Arya asked quietly, following his gaze.

 

“I think if Tormund keeps this up, he’ll realize it before terribly long,” Gendry answered. He finally met her eyes again, and wished to see anything other than the careful blankness she held there.

 

She tilted her head thoughtfully, inspecting the wound on his arm and seemingly deeming it taken care of. “Come on,” she said, standing. “They can do without us for a little while.” And before he could protest, she had taken his hand and they were slipping out the door just a few feet away.

 

A few men were clearing bodies away, but Arya ignored them all, and aside from staring at her in evident awe, they did not stop them or even look at Gendry. She led him all the way to the forge and into the back room he had been sleeping in the last few days, when there was time. Only now, there was a tub full of flowery smelling water waiting there, still steaming with heat, and a fire in the little fireplace next to the bunk, where fresh furs waited.

 

“What…?”

 

“People don’t seem to question anything you say when you’ve just saved their life,” Arya said casually. He heard the bitter tone underneath, but didn’t comment on it. “Even something as strange as asking for a bath in the forge.”

 

“Why?” he managed to ask.

 

“Because you’re filthy,” she told him, a hint of a smirk on her face, “and you’re probably going to insist on helping with the cleanup, so I thought you at least deserve a few hours rest before then.” She began untying the laces against his side that held his armor to him, despite his, admittedly weak, protests. She huffed impatiently, the first crack of the mask, and added, “We’re not leaving this room until you’re clean, so you might as well help me instead of standing there like an idiot.”

 

The word made him smile and he shrugged off his leather jerkin once she had set his armor aside. He took his pants off himself, but he let Arya help him into the tub. He groaned out loud at the way the heat immediately eased the burning of his muscles, and he slid all the way down without a second thought, causing the water to slosh over the sides a bit.

 

“Don’t hurt yourself,” she scolded, but the effect was ruined by her fingers digging into his shoulders. He let his head loll back on the edge of the tub to gaze up at her. When she noticed, she scooped a hand into the water and poured it over his head, forcing him to close his eyes. “Gods, you have no hair and yet it’s still a bloody mess.”

 

“Speak for yourself,” he said before he could stop himself. “Have you looked in a mirror?”

 

“Guess I’m next then,” she answered, “so don’t fall asleep in there.”

 

Hearing her voice made him brave, and he asked, “Why don’t you just get in here now?”

 

For a moment, there was a flash of surprise, the same expression she’d worn when she’d come. It smoothed quickly. “Because Sansa is going to come looking any minute to stitch up this stupid cut.”

 

His stomach dropped. “What – Arya, you can’t be in here with me—”

 

“Don’t be an idiot,” she scoffed. “Sansa won’t mind as long as _one_ of us is fully clothed.”

 

Privately, Gendry thought that Lady Stark would mind very much. He knew his face reflected his panic, especially when Arya drizzled more water over it. “Calm down,” she said, a little softer. “And start scrubbing yourself, that water better still be hot when I get in.”

 

She was right; a few minutes later, the other Stark sister ducked inside, red hair still in disarray and cheeks pale with shock that hadn’t quite worn off yet. She didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow at the picture they must have made; Gendry scrubbing furiously at his skin under the water and avoiding her gaze, and Arya with her hands still on his shoulders, standing behind him. She only dragged a stool from the corner over to them, sitting a little ways away from the tub. “I just need a couple of minutes,” she said to Arya, who wordlessly let Gendry go. He ignored the sudden empty feeling he got and focused on getting the dirt from underneath his fingernails.

 

Lady Stark worked silently, and Arya stood still, letting her clean and then stitch the wound. “Keep that clean,” she told the littler woman, “and be careful for a few days, you have a bump.”

 

Arya nodded. “Is Jon okay?”

 

Lady Stark smiled a little bit, to Gendry’s surprise. “His arm was loose from its socket,” she said. “Davos had to put it back in.”

 

Arya grinned. “Did he scream?”

 

“Shouted a bit,” her sister responded, grinning now too.

 

“What a baby.”

 

Lady Stark prepared to leave, returning the stool to its place in the corner. She turned back before she left though; “I locked the door to your chambers and told Jon you were there,” she said. “You two probably have a few hours before anyone comes looking.” Her eyes shifted to Gendry, and she addressed him directly. “Look after her, please; she has a habit of doing stupid things, like running into battle.”

 

“Don’t I know it,” he said ruefully, and met the woman’s smile with one of his own before she left.

 

When he looked back at Arya, her face had slid back into that careful mask, blank. “Don’t go bonding with my sister now,” she said.

  
Gendry’s stomach dropped at the words, and he finished bathing as she stripped out of her clothes, evidently tired of waiting for her turn. “I wasn’t _bonding_ with anyone,” he shot back, a little more defensive than he liked. “Why do you care anyway?” He made to get out of the tub, but Arya was climbing in before he could, forcing him down so that she could settle between his legs.

 

“Because she’s still technically married, stupid,” she retorted. “Wash my hair, will you?”

 

He automatically set to gently untangling it from its braid and combing through it to get the knots out, even as his chest constricted. “You don’t want me bonding with your sister because she’s _married_?” he asked incredulously. “What do you take me for, some sort of…” He couldn’t find the word to finish the sentence, too focused on how soft her hair was between his fingers once the dirt and blood rinsed out of it.

 

“You’re an idiot,” Arya mumbled, rubbing roughly at her arms.

 

They fell into an uncomfortable silence, and he wished he could see her face to at least try to guess what she might be thinking. His hands drifted absently to her shoulders, rolling his thumbs into the muscles there like she had earlier. He was so far in his own head that he almost flinched when she settled back against his chest with her head on his shoulder. He didn’t, by some base instinct that reminded him she was more wolf than human most of the time. At least, she had been when he’d known her. These past few days, he hadn’t been able to tell.

 

_She was certainly more wolf fighting the way she was._

 

He’d always been careful with her, but not because she was little – or, at least, not _just_ because she was little. He’d been careful with her because, on some level even before she revealed her name, he knew she was dangerous. Unnatural, inhuman in more ways than one. The stupid bravery that came up at the worst of times, like when they were captured by the Brotherhood Without Banners, or when she stripped her clothes off earlier and pointedly ignored how he was staring at her scars. He couldn’t see them now, black as the water was with their combined filth, but when she rose from the water again, he resolved to get a closer look, to trace them with his fingertips and ask her where they came from, regardless of how she might snap at him for it.

 

She may be a wolf, but she had never been of any danger to him.

 

Softly, he pressed a barely-there kiss to her temple, just next to the wound over her eye. She sighed, eyebrows scrunching for a moment before she opened her eyes and met his gaze, grey to blue.

 

Perhaps that stupid bravery of hers had crept up his own spine, because he opened his mouth and asked her, “Why did you…what did you want, earlier, before the battle?” She blinked, a hint of confusion, and he went on, “Is it because you wanted to know what it was like, or because you wanted to know what it was like with _me_?” Gods, he probably sounded like a girl, but she only frowned a little and turned in the water so she was kneeling, eyes now slightly above his own. When she didn’t answer immediately, he couldn’t stop himself from speaking again, fully aware he was just trying to fill the silence now. “Because I’m sure that any other man in the whole of Winterfell would’ve given you whatever you wanted, even before you went and stabbed the bloody Night King in the heart. But you came to me in the forge, and you waited for me later, and is it just because I’m familiar, or—” His heart sank further in his chest with every word, because she was just staring at him, making him feel even more daft than he already did. It was a relief when she interrupted him.

 

“It’s because I trust you,” she said, a hand solidly pressing onto his chest. “I don’t trust anyone else enough to do that with them. Hells, I don’t trust anyone else at all.”

 

“Oh.” It wasn’t the answer he expected, and it wasn’t the answer he wanted, and he didn’t know what else to say.

 

She kept _looking_ at him, eyes narrowed. “I meant it,” she said, “when I told you I could be your family. I didn’t mean that us, the Starks, could be your family, I meant _me._ ” She pushed herself a little closer, knees on either side of his hips so he couldn’t look anywhere but her eyes. “It might have meant something different, back then, but…Gendry,” and gods help him, but he loved the sound of his name in her mouth, as serious as she sounded right then, “I’m not who I was.”

 

“I might have noticed,” he said, a little dazed, “when you were throwing knives and then when you were fighting earlier.”

 

“You saw that?”

 

“A bit,” he admitted. “I might have helped, but you seemed to have it covered.”

 

“Up until I hit my head,” she countered, and he reached up to touch the stitched wound almost unconsciously. She leaned into his hand like she wasn’t aware she was doing it, so he cupped her cheek and let her slump forward enough to press their foreheads together. “Beric died so the Hound could get me away. The red woman said it was his purpose, or something.” She closed her eyes. “The worst thing is…a year ago, if someone had sacrificed their life for me, I’m not sure I would have felt guilty for it.”

 

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

 

“An assassin does their job,” she said quietly, “and if there is collateral damage, then so be it. It’s all in the purpose of serving the God of Death.”

 

And all of a sudden, the blank mask she wore – the difficulty she seemed to have showing any emotion other than confidence – made sense. The scars on her stomach, the ones he was tracing now under the water, had a whole new meaning.

 

“Were _you_ collateral damage?”

 

She chuckled softly, mirthlessly. “No,” she said. “I was just too good at killing, and not good enough at following orders.”

 

She was fully seated in his lap now, but there was nothing remotely sexual about the way he was holding her, sweeping his hands up her back soothingly, kissing her cheek in some sort of attempt at comfort. The water was beginning to cool; if they remained much longer, getting out of the tub would be that much more unpleasant. He didn’t want to move though, not when she was finally opening up, not when that vulnerability he’d glimpsed earlier was finally beginning to settle into the soft lines on either side of her eyes.

 

She opened them again, looking at him sort of brokenly. “I’m not good,” she whispered in the space between their lips, “but I’d like to learn how to be, if I still can.”

 

Gendry pushed her hair back, rubbed his thumb over her cheekbone, and murmured, “Is that why you’re here? You want me to make you good again?”

 

“No,” she sighed, and the last of the mask slipped away with it. “I just wanted to be with you."


End file.
